Customer Snapshot

Setting the Bar for Sustainable Brewing

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less packaging costs with lighter-weight cardboard

Golden Road Brewing has taken Los Angeles by storm and they are investing in future growth with an on-demand solution that launches the brewery from spreadsheets and manual reports straight into the Cloud. With the help of this system based on SAP Business One, Golden Road can deliver even fresher beer, resulting in increased revenue, lower costs, and – no surprise here – happier customers.

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History

Stratospheric growth continues

2008Meg Gill began working in the beer industry for Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, CO.

2011Golden Road Brewing founded by Tony Yanow and Meg Gill.

2011Golden Road chooses to deliver “an honest pint” in 16-ounce cans.

2012Golden Road landed a distribution deal with Whole Foods Markets.

2013As part of their commitment to local community, Golden Road teamed up with the Heal The Bay organization to help support that nonprofit’s mission of making Southern California's coastal waters safe, healthy and clean.

Business Model

Two-pronged sustainability plan

Golden Road Brewing was founded in 2011 with a mission to bring fresh beer to the local market in the most sustainable way possible.

At their brewery-pub in Glendale, they offer 20 revolving beers on tap and serve a wide variety of food. This two-pronged strategy addresses the needs of both thirsty and hungry customers. Golden Road also sells their product to local beer distributors and stores.

Success Strategy

Continually supporting beer enthusiasts

Golden Road is committed to engaging and supporting the growing community of socially minded beer enthusiasts. Along with their core beers, Golden Road brewers are constantly experimenting with the freshest ingredients through a collection of rotating, seasonal and limited-edition brews.

Golden Road aimed to produce 18,000 barrels of beer in 2013 – a significant volume for a start-up craft brewery in the second year of business. And they strive to become a 60,000 barrel-a-year brewery in the future.

The Challenge

Keeping quality and profit margins in line

To ensure the brewery can meet the anticipated demand, Golden Road needs visibility into inventory, production schedules, and raw materials.

But in the past, Golden Road had not set up a data management system and was running the business on disparate spreadsheets. This resulted in lost productivity and a serious lack of access to business data. Company leaders recognized that they needed state-of-the-art systems operating in the cloud to enable Golden Road to access pertinent information anytime, anyplace, and on any device.

“The quality of our beer is our most important business issue. We want to be able to produce the beer we want and still make a margin.”

- Paul Burgis, COO and CFO, Golden Road Brewing

Enter SAP

A brewing veteran points the way

Golden Road’s goal was to become a sustainable craft beer business. The company hired Paul Burgis, a veteran of Anheuser Busch, to run its operations. Paul knew the value of SAP through his previous experience, and introduced Golden Road to OrchestratedBEER, a system from SAP partner Orchestra Software that is built on the SAP Business One application. It turned out to be the right solution.

The SAP Experience

Speedy and priced right

OrchestratedBEER for the cloud was the economical solution for Golden Road with a five-week implementation timeline, virtual training, and support. It enabled Golden Road to make the investment needed in an ERP system without breaking the bank.

In fact, Golden Road realized a complete return on investment in six months.

Running Better

Well-orchestrated brewing

Golden Road now uses OrchestratedBEER to map every process, and the solution fulfills a critical need by giving management anytime mobile access to key brewery information. For example, the system can tell brewers what raw materials they need, how much they need, and when to buy them. The result is lower costs, effective inventory management, and more accurate business forecasts.

Benefits

Staying fresh, and green

Golden Road is eliminating order delays due to missing raw materials, and missed sales due to shortages. Custom inventory aging reports help avoid dumping due to beer being over age.

The Cloud solution is also helping Golden Road stay green. The brewery can e-mail paperless purchase orders and invoices directly to business customers.

Today

Becoming a model for sustainable breweries

OrchestratedBEER and SAP Business One have helped build greater transparency into Golden Road’s data management, delivering a single version of data and real-time answers to mission-critical questions.

With all their critical operating information only a few mouse clicks away, the company is becoming a model of a sustainable brewery.

Journey Ahead

The cloud makes the sky the limit

Golden Road Brewing continues on their quest – growing from a small craft brewery to one that can lead the market in Southern California.